


Hanging By A Thread

by Reis_Asher



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Break Up, Falling Out of Love, Heavy Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Sad, Song: Thread (Keane), Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26814634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: Hank says six words he can't take back, ending his relationship with Connor. As Connor walks out the door, he tries to understand where it all went wrong.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Hanging By A Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This fic is based off a song: Thread, by Keane. As with a lot of things I love, I decided to make it HankCon. And yes, like the song, it's devastatingly sad. I apologize for the amount of sad breakup fics lately - I've been in a melancholy mood for a while now.

Connor packed his things, trying to keep the tears out of his eyes as Hank stood in the doorway, a hunched, silent shadow. Smaller somehow than he'd ever been, this six-foot-four mountain of a man shrinking from a giant to an average human being. 

Connor didn't look at the photograph of them sitting on the bedside table, but he didn't need to. Eidetic memory was a curse. He couldn't simply forget everything that had transpired between them in five long years. Hank's smile was locked in his memory, and he wondered if Hank's grin had always looked so much like a grimace.

Hank moved out of the doorway when Connor approached, shrinking away like he was allergic to Connor's touch. Connor wanted to say something, but every preconstructed response was a garbled mess of broken code. There was no answer to Hank's words. They were final, absolute. The death knell of everything they'd built, their togetherness washing away into the sea like a sandcastle at high tide.

"Forgive me," Hank whispered. His hands were shaking, and Connor knew as soon as he was out of the front door he'd reach for the secret whiskey in the back of the cupboard over the sink. It had layers of dust on it, inevitably waiting for the day when Hank slipped. Connor had left it there as an act of trust, hoping he never gave Hank a need to reach for it. 

He'd never imagined Hank himself would be the weak link, the self-destructive nature that lived inside him taking on physical form and moving Hank's lips like a puppet, seizing his throat in a devastating act of possession.

Connor wanted to stop him going for the bottle, but Hank belonged to a world of one, now. A life where he made his own mistakes, instead of them making decisions as a couple. Perhaps they'd been hanging by a thread for a long time, their individual needs slowly not being met. Connor was busy with work. Hank was not busy enough whittling away the time to retirement on desk duty. What had once been new had become routine, and men like Hank grew restless.

A small shard of resentment stuck in Connor's heart at that revelation. He was the million-dollar prototype detective android. If anyone had a right to feel stuck in the rut of monotony, it was him. But he'd been happy. Perfectly content until Hank had said those six words that had ruined everything.

"I'm not good enough for you," Hank mumbled as Connor crossed the living room, as if he could justify what he'd said, like adding a qualifier changed the meaning of his words enough to nullify their effect.

"You know that's not true," Connor countered, pain making him bold enough to find words at last. The front door was six feet away, and yet he didn't want to step towards it. They'd lost their way, and yet maybe the death of their romance was inevitable with the passage of time. There was nothing he could do to stuff those words back into Hank's mouth, though he wished he could. "You're a good man."

In Hank's arms, Connor felt like he knew right from wrong, but he had to find his own way in the world, now. Strange, that his moral compass should be the one to slip and betray his own ideals. Or perhaps embody them in full—Hank was nothing if not honest. This truth must have festered inside him for a long time before escaping like a demon exorcised through his mouth. The lie of happiness must have been such a strain on him, fraying the cord that held them together.

"Just not good enough," Hank replied. Connor saw the exhaustion in his eyes, a man spread too thin. All the loves of his life, his friends, the department, Sumo, Cole's ghost, and Connor—Hank's love was spread too thin, incapable of keeping up with Connor's starry-eyed first love.

Connor should have seen it coming, but he was too in love, caught in his own trap. He grabbed the doorknob, turning it for the last time.

_"I'm not in love with you."_ Hank's words echoed in his mind as Connor stepped over the threshold. He knew in time he'd forgive Hank, but right now he was as broken as any machine in the junkyard, unable to delete the scripting of beloved subroutines written for a man who no longer wanted him.


End file.
